posted at 10:01 pm on July 14, 2014 by Mary Katharine Ham

Via the Free Beacon, forgive the length, but you understand there’s a lot to list.

The list is grave and important to hear all at once like that every now and then. Perhaps one of the PR strengths of this White House is to have so very many things going wrong at one time that one can forget about individual brush strokes of ineptitude as they blend into one magnificent mural of incompetence. Karl’s list doesn’t allow that so easily, and newly minted Press Secretary Josh Earnest must wrestle with it. His first tack— complain about media bias because a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal can’t possibly be an indicator of anything.

Asked whether the president bears responsibility for these situations, and what he can do about it, Earnest dodged the questions and instead said that, in each situation, the president will consider “at the core the consequences it has for American national security.”

“In each of the situations you referenced,” Earnest continued. “People are asking a legitimate question about what is the proper role for the United States’ involvement,” curiously using the world’s confusion about Obama’s absence from action to pat the president on the back. I half expected him to end with, “and we are asking that question, too, and have no idea what the answer is.” Good news, though. The White House’s action item on the above list is to…consider a principle.

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Perhaps one of the PR strengths of this White House is to have so very many things going wrong at one time that one can forget about individual brush strokes of ineptitude as they blend into one magnificent mural of incompetence.

Obama’s eff-ups and malice have killed thousands in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico (Fast& Furious), and many more in Ukraine and now Israel. Many of our veterans have suffered and died waiting for Barky’s DeathCare prototype called the present day VA.

The body count in Chicago is testament to the incompetence of Mayor Tinkerbell formerly of the Ogabe administration.

I can remember David Gregory grilling a White House press secretary (it was the wimpy one whose name always escapes me) and asking follow up after follow up. In the meantime, we have the silence of the lambs. I guess, unlike a Romney campaign stop, they really don’t coordinate their questions.

It’s why his policies seem so maddening to the uninitiated. He’s not incompetent, he just has an entirely different agenda (weaken America) than any other POTUS in history. He can’t come out and say it, but he’s marching along quite successfully as demonstrated by Karl’s statement and question.

playbook: how the salty/spicy new West Wing phrase for the Obama Doctrine wound up in the @NYTimes 3 times in 4 days http://goo.gl/uUS2tm
==========

By MIKE ALLEN | 06/01/14 1:08 PM EDT

Welcome to June. BEHIND THE CURTAIN: For those pining for an Obama Doctrine victory for the president,

here it is: “Don’t Do Stupid Shit.”

Playbook rarely prints a four-letter word — our nephews are loyal readers. But we are, in this case, because that is the precise phrase President Obama and his aides are using in their off-the-record chats with journalists.

If the aim was to get this phrase in circulation to define the Obama doctrine, mission accomplished!

It appeared in the L.A. Times at the end of Obama’s Asia trip this spring, was reprised in the lead story of Thursday’s New York Times, and is used TWICE in today’s NYT — once in the news columns, and once in a column by Tom Friedman, who was part of an off-the-record roundtable with Obama on Tuesday:

Asked whether the president bears responsibility for these situations, and what he can do about it, Earnest dodged the questions and instead said that, in each situation, the president will consider “at the core the consequences it has for American national security.”

So, where does he consider the “core of consequeces”? At the golf course, bowling lane #3, or table #6 at the pub? When? Between tokes, changing garments between fundraisers, or while sharing brews with celebrities at White House parties? Lastly, has bams come up with a “to do” draft list of what he’s come up so far to fix “things”?

His first tack— complain about media bias because a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal can’t possibly be an indicator of anything.

Gotta say, Mary Katherine — I read almost the entire post thinking Allah wrote it. This is not faint praise. Beautifully done.

As for the Ernest T. Bass and the now-hilarious position of White House Press Flak, good grief. His WSJ critique is so juvenile it made Carney Barker look almost professional. News Flash for Ernie — the front page section of the WSJ has been compared unfavorably to the New York Times for liberal bias, by objective media critics.

It is a far, far hike from the WSJ’s front page to anything remotely resembling unfair criticism of O’Bozo (the Clown President).

The press didn’t challenge Obama for most of his first five years because they support him. And those in the MSM who did were criticized by colleagues – or fired.

But his popularity is getting so low now that some are realizing they have put aside their own dwindling credibility to cover for him, and are beginning to hedge their bets as the bottom begins to fall out. Not NBC, of course, but some.

~~

Speaking of lying sacks of crap, MKH’s buddy Juan Williams has a nice boot-licking piece in The Hill bemoaning how the mean old Republicans hurt that sweet old legislator Harry Reid’s delicate feelings.

The list is grave and important to hear all at once like that every now and then. Perhaps one of the PR strengths of this White House is to have so very many things going wrong at one time that one can forget about individual brush strokes of ineptitude as they blend into one magnificent mural of incompetence.

Brilliant and exquisite.

But the second tack is indicative of the White House’s problem. Granted, it is partially the press secretary’s job to say basically nothing, and given that Earnest’s longtime idol is the President, he is understandably a promising padawan of verbal piddling. But the level of nothingness herein, at the risk of mixing my science fiction/fantasy metaphors, is so great as to send Atreyu and Artax wading through the Swamp of Sadness.

Brilliant and funny. Congratulations MKH and thank you for such good thinking and writing.

Six years in and the press is left cataloging the foreign policy disasters. If John Karl and those silly twits sitting next to him had done their jobs the political heat would have long since meant that list was shorter and less dangerous to civilization.

Josh Earnest will shortly learn to attack the messenger though, and Karl will find himself at CNN, with their two hundred viewers, right alongside Jake Tapper. Or maybe at the Daily Signal, along with the estimable Sharyl Attkisson.